Illumians

[willpell]

My first reaction to this race presented in Races of Destiny was to roll my eyes and move on; the concept was slightly cool but mostly absurd, and a glance at the list of abilities you gain for power-sigil "words" quickly convinced me that I had better things to pay attention to. Lately I reconsidered and began to look at them in more depth, and well, they're still giving me a headache. Half the "power words" I can't even figure out how they're supposed to work; what does "expend a spell slot (but not one containing a prepared spell" even mean? And the other half just seem really weak with few exceptions.

Take Aeshkrau, for example, it lets you determine your bonus spells with Strength instead of, say, Wisdom (if you're a cleric). But you still have to have Wisdom equal to 10+Caster level to cast the spell, and you still base your save DCs off of Wisdom, and you don't even get more bonus spells from an 18 than from a 14 until you're five levels into the class, by which time you'll have gotten an attribute boost anyway. So what exactly is the point? It might be okay for Paladins and Rangers, but otherwise it looks pretty useless.

Clearly there's something about this race I'm not getting, but they're on theme for my game in enough ways that I'm determined to break 'em open, look through their guts to figure out what makes 'em tick, and put 'em back together with enough tweaks to meet my approval. So I'm looking for input about what folks have observed of them so far. Just how do those power words work, and are they any good? What about the class's other features? Does having a magic candle on his head inconvenience the Rogue when he's trying to Hide in darkness? How often does that resistance to shadow spells even come up, and how useful is it having Speak Language as a class skill when you're a Barbarian or something?

Let's hear whatever you got to say, beyond "they suck" or "they're awesome".

[Aharon]

They are really good at multiclassing. They get early entry for double-casting PrCs like Mystic theurge, so they don't suck in this role. They also make good Truenamers, which is an awesome combination from a fluff point of view :smallsmile:

[blazingshadow]

It might be okay for Paladins and Rangers, but otherwise it looks pretty useless.
pretty much the whole point. it makes those classes a bit more SAD and makes multiclassers have some options


what does "expend a spell slot (but not one containing a prepared spell" even mean? it means that if you are a wizard you need to not prepare a spell so you can use that ability but if you are a sorcerer, warmage or beguiler you just sack the spell slot to use it so it's more suited for them.

all in all i believe the most used illumian build might be one that focuses on metamagic like the ultimate magus build (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=0a7mgr00airevrgfrhgh18kis7&topic=431).

[Red_Dog]

They are one of THE best paladin races in the print. Charging rangers love them too.

They work equally well for all gishes though => Hexblades, Duskblades and the rest of fullBAB & spells gang loves these dudes.

P.S. for paladin's I would say the best races besides them are Azurins[Incarnum shindig], Humans[Duuuuuh ^^] & Killoren[Smiter builds].

P.S.2. *EDIT* Also tbh, they are great for "dex" magical gishes as well. Again archer rangers[swift hunters in particular = hunter's sigh + skirmish? yes please!] come to mind. It would also seems that even guys like "spelltief" notorious for space wasting would be much SADer w/ them.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Illumians are a situational race. For most characters, they won't really offer you much over going Human. A few multiclass builds actually hinge on using Illumian to work well (Beguiler/Wizard/UM), or you get unique abilities that enable extremely powerful tricks (Naenhoon: Persist on the standard Sorcadin build). If you're not building a character that would make optimal use of your runewords, then you'll probably be better off using a different race, but in the right situation Illumian has a lot to offer.

[Keld Denar]

AeshKrau and NaenHoon are probably the two most frequently cited uses of Illumian. NaenHoon in particular is nice for Dread Necromancers and any arcane caster that included Sacred Exorcist since you can fake DMM any 2 spells. A gish with persisted Greater Blinking plus Wraithstrike is pretty scary. I built couple of decent Suel Arcanamachs with Illumian as well.

[onemorelurker]

They are really good at multiclassing. They get early entry for double-casting PrCs like Mystic theurge, so they don't suck in this role. They also make good Truenamers, which is an awesome combination from a fluff point of view :smallsmile:

Does anything except rewriting the truenaming rules really make a good Truenamer? :smalltongue:

[Red_Dog]

persisted Greater Blinking plus Wraithstrike is pretty scary.

Reading thru uses of DMM physically hurts me... Its one of those things I generally try to ignore existence of... Like a proper Ur-Priest build or an electric bill... = P

P.S. My apologies for a derailing comment. was just jesting ^^

[ericgrau]

Aeshkrau str to bonus spells is their most popular ability since it lets gishes get tons of extra buffs spells and the save DC doesn't matter on those anyway.

[Tokuhara]

I've actually played an Illumian Truenamer, and with a pair of minor houserules (the repeated use garbage go bye-bye and Illumians get +ECL to Truenaming checks), Truenamer was fluff-wise and crunch-wise powerful (in comparison to the rest of the party, who were a Human Healer, a Whisper Gnome SA Thug Fighter/Blackguard/Assassin, a Changeling Factotum/Chameleon, and a Fire Elf Stalwart Sorcerer/Virtuoso/Sublime Chord/Druid/Fochulan Lyrist)

However , without burning a feat, these guys make HORRIBLE sneaky types (rogue, assassin, ninja, scout, etc.). And fighter isn't their forte, so caster is their favorite thing to be.

[Yuki Akuma]

Strength is the most ridiculously easy ability score to boost. Aeshkrau is awesome.

[Jeff the Green]

There are two main uses, as everyone has said. You can use the Improved Sigil: Krau feat to get early entry to various prestige classes (such as 4th level entry to Mystic Theurge, which is really the only way to make that class viable). The other is Aeskrau/Uurkrau for better bonus spells for certain classes. It doesn't benefit any core full casters, but if Academic Priest/Dynamic Priest aren't in play, it can make Favored Soul, Spirit Shaman, and Archivist a little less MAD. Each of them benefits from a high Dex or Str anyway.

My personal favorite, which I've not gotten to play yet is an Urrkrau Illumian Necropolitan Beguiler 2/Archivist 1/Mystic Theurge 10/Begiler 7. Level 19 Beguiler casting (CL 20), level 11 Archivist casting (CL 13, 17 with Practiced Caster). As a Necropolitan you can dump Con, with Uurkrau you can dump Wis, and neither class cares much about Str or Cha, so you can afford 18s in Int and Dex with a 32 pb. Strictly speaking, reversing Beguiler and Archivist would be more powerful, but I like Beguilers.

Another thing they're good at is the Wild Mage PrC. At 1st level it reduces your CL by three, then whenever you cast a spell you add 1d6 to it. Normally you take Practiced Caster to make up for that, but the Krau sigil obviates the need for it and frees up a feat slot.

[Morithias]

Does anything except rewriting the truenaming rules really make a good Truenamer? :smalltongue:

Have you ever even attempted to make or play a truenamer? I'm serious. I've seen person after person after person put down that class, yet I've never once seen a campaign log where they actually attempted it.

Learn to max/min your skills. Then come back to me.

[Halae]

Have you ever even attempted to make or play a truenamer? I'm serious. I've seen person after person after person put down that class, yet I've never once seen a campaign log where they actually attempted it.

Learn to max/min your skills. Then come back to me.

This. I've seen builds that can get skill levels up to 34 at level 5. There's nothing stopping a a truenamer from being powerful, particularly with this race that seems so amazingly good for it.

[willpell]

Shortly after writing the OP, I reread the sigil words and realized that the "spend a spell slot without a prepared spell" thing probably refers to sorcerers and favored souls, referring to their spells per day as "slots" even though they do exactly the opposite of what a "slot" would seem to do. So that makes some sense at least. I still think most of the words don't look very useful, although I very much like the kind of single-class cleric you can get with, I think it's Hoonvaur? Spend a rebuke attempt to add 1d8 damage to an Inflict? Very nice, that.


Strength is the most ridiculously easy ability score to boost. Aeshkrau is awesome.

Bonus spells are determined by your natural attribute, like skill points. Anything other than an inherent bonus (from Wish) won't affect them.

[Menteith]

Bonus spells are determined by your natural attribute, like skill points. Anything other than an inherent bonus (from Wish) won't affect them.

Shouldn't Strength increases from Size Bonuses, from a template like Half Minotaur, give some significant boosts to Spells/Day?

[Yuki Akuma]

Shouldn't Strength increases from Size Bonuses, from a template like Half Minotaur, give some significant boosts to Spells/Day?

This is in fact exactly what I was referring to. Your base Strength is hilariously easy to boost.

Also, actually, having any bonus that lasts more than 24 hours will grant you bonus spells. So just wear your Belt of Giant Strength all the time.

[Jeff the Green]

Also, actually, having any bonus that lasts more than 24 hours will grant you bonus spells. So just wear your Belt of Giant Strength all the time.

That was what I thought, but I can't find the reference. Where does it say that?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Have you ever even attempted to make or play a truenamer? I'm serious. I've seen person after person after person put down that class, yet I've never once seen a campaign log where they actually attempted it.

Learn to max/min your skills. Then come back to me.

Here's your answer, by the inestimable Zaq:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114269

[Morithias]

Here's your answer, by the inestimable Zaq:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114269

I stand corrected. He make some good points, although I still have to question his actual build. Sure he had to optimize some and rely on items but then again so does the fighter, the monk, and the barbarian to be useful.

Of course given what little I could get out of it, and given he did not post his actual build, I question how min/max he actually got...this kinda stinks of "I hate it, so i'm going to half-ass try it just so I can claim I did".

[shadow_archmagi]

Illumians with Aeshkrau are *great* for psychic warriors for the same reason as paladins, but moreso because they only cast self-buffs, so as long as their casting stat is high enough to hit the minimum they're just fine. With a 12 in Wisdom and a cheap +2 item, you're set up until 13th level! Then you can happily put your 18 into Strength and have lots of power points while punching people really hard!

I have played this character and it worked quite well.

[willpell]

Okay fine, maybe Aeshkrau isn't bad. But I defy anyone to defend Uuraesh (I think that's it), the one that gives you a +2 dodge bonus to AC against anyone you just nailed with a critical hit or a sneak attack. If you landed one of those and your opponent is still standing, you've already all but lost the fight.

[Menteith]

Okay fine, maybe Aeshkrau isn't bad. But I defy anyone to defend Uuraesh (I think that's it), the one that gives you a +2 dodge bonus to AC against anyone you just nailed with a critical hit or a sneak attack. If you landed one of those and your opponent is still standing, you've already all but lost the fight.

How else can you get those precious boosts to Strength and Dexterity skills though?

I'll agree that they're really unexciting for a mundane. If you don't have spell slots/turn attempts, they're incredibly bland.

[shadow_archmagi]

Okay fine, maybe Aeshkrau isn't bad. But I defy anyone to defend Uuraesh (I think that's it), the one that gives you a +2 dodge bonus to AC against anyone you just nailed with a critical hit or a sneak attack. If you landed one of those and your opponent is still standing, you've already all but lost the fight.

Uuraesh is

+2 to STR checks, which means Jump, Swim, Climb, Burst Free From The Bonds Of Your Captors, and maybe Trip/Bullrush/Disarm/Sunder?

+2 to DEX checks, which means Initiative, Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Tumble, and Use Rope, and maybe Trip/Bullrush/Disarm/Sunder??

+2 AC against enemies you've critted/sneak attacked.

For a rogue, that's pretty good. +2 to a wide variety of skills, initiative, and AC? (A rogue will probably always be sneak attacking so the bonus is effectively permanent.)

I'd definitely argue that "Skill Focus for 12 skills, the Dodge feat twice, and half of Improved Init, and then maybe a bonus to Trip and Disarm and so forth depending on whether those are Strength/Dex checks I can never remember" is comparable to humanity's one bonus feat. (admittedly, Dodge and Skill Focus are pretty terrible as feats go, but packaging a them together in a huge bundle makes it palatable IMO)

[willpell]

Uuraesh is
+2 to STR checks, which means Jump, Swim, Climb, Burst Free From The Bonds Of Your Captors, and maybe Trip/Bullrush/Disarm/Sunder?

You need feats to trip, bullrush, disarm or sunder without significant risks (at least of a dropped weapon, if not attacks of opportunity or suffering the effects of your own maneuver due to a bad roll). With only three STR-based skills, Aesh is far from spectacular.


+2 to DEX checks, which means Initiative, Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Tumble, and Use Rope, and maybe Trip/Bullrush/Disarm/Sunder??

Yeah okay, Uur is pretty good in and of itself, based on hide and tumble alone. Does it really apply to inish rolls? If so then it is indeed very good.


(A rogue will probably always be sneak attacking so the bonus is effectively permanent.)

The AC bonus is only effective against the specific opponent you just sneaked, and IIRC it's only for one turn. So unless you're Multishotting or something, you're still plenty vulnerable to your target's buddies - and even the target might be able to bypass that dodge bonus by returning the favor with his own SA if he can get you flanked. And this bonus will be increasingly irrelevant as your SA damage boost goes up; eventually it's either "kill" or "miss", and either way you get no help against that opponent.


I'd definitely argue that "Skill Focus for 12 skills

Skill Focus is +3; it's more like six or so of those +2-to-to-skills feats. Though admittedly this is still rather decent.


the Dodge feat twice

Unless you miss with your SA.

[Zaq]

I stand corrected. He make some good points, although I still have to question his actual build. Sure he had to optimize some and rely on items but then again so does the fighter, the monk, and the barbarian to be useful.

Of course given what little I could get out of it, and given he did not post his actual build, I question how min/max he actually got...this kinda stinks of "I hate it, so i'm going to half-ass try it just so I can claim I did".

You got me. I clearly hate the class, which is why I wrote 23,000+ words (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214115) on it.

Anyway, on-topic, Illumians are my favorite race. Uur does indeed provide one of the only two racial boosts to initiative that I know of on ECL 0 races. Honestly, Naen and Vaul are just spectacular, because there are so many INT and CHA-based skills, and they're generally worth doing properly. Krau is also great for partial casters (like Paladins, Hexblades, etc.)—getting half of Practiced Caster for free isn't bad. I'm honestly more fond of the base sigil effects than I am of most of the power words, though I recognize that some of them (especially Aeshkrau, Uurkrau, and Naenhoon) are quite powerful if you use them right. Both of the illumians I've played have pretty much ignored their power words, and I still feel like I got my money's worth out of the race.

[Morithias]

[QUOTE=Zaq;13017322]You got me. I clearly hate the class, which is why I wrote 23,000+ words (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214115) on it.

People spend time on what they hate. One guy wrote a 50+ blog post of him tearing apart the twilight series, and i've probably posted way more than 25k words on this forum and in chat rooms talking about 4th edition and the forgotten realms.

I'm just curious what would've happened if you had gone all out. Let the munchkin play instead of the standard player. I mean on this forum we have people talking about thought bottles, candles, and tier 1 classes all the time. We have a level 1 character that can destroy all of creation as a swift action, and you're telling me NO ONE on this forum is capable of making that class work? Are you seriously telling me that as a whole the ENTIRE base of 3.5 players is unable to do it? I mean come on! I've seen posts that gave a cleric the ability to spontaneously cast ANY spell on their list at any time!

[Zaq]

. . . you're telling me NO ONE on this forum is capable of making that class work?

I would respectfully request you read my work before putting words in my mouth.

[Morithias]

I would respectfully request you read my work before putting words in my mouth.

I did. I read all of it. It was good, but still I just find it weird that we can't make it work. That thing has literally infinite caster capacity in theory, and later on can do 30d6 to mass enemy units assuming it makes two skill checks, which given something like a ring of truenaming +30 wouldn't be that hard.

I mean, if we can make it work, why does everyone keep calling it broken? Do you see what I'm saying? If your thing is some big proof to the truenamer being playable, why do we still have people saying that kind of stuff. Either they haven't seen it, or there's something that you, and logically everyone else, missed.

Prehaps I need to word my arguments better, but really your whole thing came across like Spoony's review of Breaking Dawn. He did see it, he did watch it, but he knew going in he wasn't going to approve of it.

[Zaq]

Spoilered for a discussion rapidly veering off-topic:

You keep saying that "we can't make it work." We can. I have. I've shared how to do it, and how not to do it, in what I think is rather a bit of detail. I've never said that it's unplayable, or that it can't be made to work. It's frustrating, it's often limited, and it takes more effort than it's generally worth, but it IS playable and it DOES work. It just doesn't have a lot of flexibility, and it's easy to screw up.

As for people saying it's broken . . . well, in some ways, it is. It's exceedingly poorly designed, it needs a lot of editing, and a lot of its limitations really don't need to be there. It is true that you can't really succeed with the class without a decent level of system mastery—not just because it's tricky to get the skill checks up (that's a problem, but the extent to which it is a problem is overstated more often than not), but because the class is so limited and has such a narrow scope in which it can excel, meaning that you really have to know exactly what you're doing before you do it, both at chargen and at the table. The Truenamer does not work the way I think WotC believed it works, and in that sense, yes, it is broken. It is not unplayable, and anyone who says it is probably hasn't done much research.

More than anything, the Truenamer is disappointing. The fluff has such potential—and even ignoring that, some of the low-level utterances (the Big Three being Universal Aptitude, Inertia Surge, and Hidden Truth) are actually really nice. One major problem is that the class stops getting nice things as it levels up (this is especially apparent with the LCT and LPM utterances—with a few notable exceptions, most of them would be better balanced if you got them at about half the level you actually do, give or take), and you run out of low-hanging fruit for ways to increase your Truespeak checks, and the class just seems to stagnate. It's different from, say, the Paladin (mostly in that you can't just take a few levels of Truenamer for the good stuff and move on to bigger and better things), but it still feels like the Truenamer is just another book away from being perfectly respectable, rather than scraping by only by following a few specific paths. That, and it's obvious that the class needs editing (the number of inconsistencies in that chapter is prodigious), and the whole thing just feels unfinished. That's really frustrating, and it doesn't reflect well on the class.

But yeah, anyone who tells you that "we can't make it work" or "it's broken and unplayable" doesn't know what they're talking about. Anyone who says "it's probably more effort than it's worth" or "it's frustrating how little room for creativity you have" is a lot closer to being right on the money.

Anyway, illumians. What's everyone's take on the illumian default fluff? I generally don't make a big deal of the different cabals, but I love the illumian pantheon and the history of the illumian people. I also like a lot of the little details, like the bit about how the more makeup an illumian is wearing, the more likely it is that they want to be left alone. That's interesting, and it helps flesh the race out as a culture in my mind.

[Jeff the Green]

When people say that the Truenamer is broken, they generally don't mean "it sucks" (at least as I read it). They mean that it either sucks, or it's too good; there's no good way for them to find a middle ground. They can either be incapable of casting because the DCs are too high, or they optimize the heck out of the skill and gate in solars at will. Sort of like blaster wizards: they either do thousands of damage per round (via metamagic reducers, mostly) or they're worse than a barbarian with a greataxe.

[Yuki Akuma]

When people say that the Truenamer is broken, they generally don't mean "it sucks" (at least as I read it). They mean that it either sucks, or it's too good;

When I say it's broken, I mean that its class features literally fail to function without serious optimisation.

[Benly]

Truenamers are broken in much the same way my air conditioner is broken. It doesn't mean it's a super-powerful air conditioner, it doesn't mean it's the worst air conditioner in human history and someone should be ashamed for letting it see the market, it means I need to thump it a few times before it starts making things colder and it makes weird noises the whole time.

Truenamers need extra thumps before they work, and they'll make weird noises the whole time (both metaphorically and literally, I guess.) A non-broken class doesn't need thumping before it does anything, although what it does without thumping may be less than spectacular.

[willpell]

Anyway, illumians. What's everyone's take on the illumian default fluff? I generally don't make a big deal of the different cabals, but I love the illumian pantheon and the history of the illumian people. I also like a lot of the little details, like the bit about how the more makeup an illumian is wearing, the more likely it is that they want to be left alone. That's interesting, and it helps flesh the race out as a culture in my mind.

I think the Illumians are a bit creaky but have the potential to be interesting. The visual of them having a "halo" of glyphs fits if you want to play up the idea of them using the Words of Creation (potentially creating a very interesting tension with their highly political and competitive nature, which can easily turn murderous - imagine a guy with a glowing head proving in bloodsoaked detail that he ain't no angel), but for most purposes it feels a little too weird IMO, and so in my current game I'm going with them having natural "tattoos" instead, notably half of their power word on each side of their chest, the first one appearing over the heart and the other opposite it.

Most of the pantheon leaves me cold - especially given that we don't hear any reason behind why Wakathu wants to destroy them. It kinda smacks of them going out of their way to invent an illumian-specific evil for the benefit of the playtesters' illumian pcs, because just having them persecuted by Hextor or Boccob or something wouldn't have been snowflakey enough. But out of the pantheon, I love the idea of Soorinek the Doubter, although I don't buy her as Evil - she strikes me as Lawful Neutral and a spectacularly good archetype thereof, obeying the strictures of reason to the point of being unreasonable and sabotaging entrenched systems not out of Chaos but out of criticism, not because she hates all law but because these particular laws aren't good enough for her. Long before I had committed to using a version of Illumians in my game, I had added Soorinek to my pantheon, figuring she didn't have to be from any particular race to have ascended to godhood after a lifetime of denying it, and continuing to resist the idea that piety is a good thing even now that she depends on it herself. Glorious potential there.

[shadow_archmagi]

but for most purposes it feels a little too weird IMO, and so in my current game I'm going with them having natural "tattoos" instead, notably half of their power word on each side of their chest, the first one appearing over the heart and the other opposite it.

Agreed, floating words is just too weird. If I remember right, it's only their two words orbiting their heads, so it's more like this guy (http://blog.espol.edu.ec/jlucin/files/2010/03/bloodmage.jpg) than an actual halo. It's still just too weird though. It's really hard to imagine a family of Illumians sitting down to breakfast with STRENGTH and MAGIC whizzing around everywhere.

I went with tattoos too, but decided that they should still be constantly moving (The Illumian can voluntarily move them as a free action, but normally they just wander around on their own)

[willpell]

No, all the pictures show them with a full ring, and the ability states that the power sigils can only be distinguished from the random symbols by making a check (Spellcraft I think, maybe KnowArc). But I still say it makes them look like they're on a holodeck or something. Neat idea, but just too odd for casual use, something to save for a special occasion. Maybe when they're on the Astral Plane the language starts leaking out of their head, but in the corporeal world they're mostly normal looking.

[Keld Denar]

My NaenHoon Suel Arcanamach's sigils reflect his mood. If he's calm or insightful, they drift and float. If he is excited, thinking really hard, or expressing strong conviction, they whirl faster, sometimes with their orbit becoming eccentric or off balance depending on his level of frustration or fear or shame. It's kinda like a giant luminous mood ring, if you understand how to parse it.